


way down we go

by darlingargents



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Food Deprivation, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Sleep Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump, lifehack: cope w ur guilt and stress by depriving urself of sleep/food/etc!, perpetually stressed badass finally gets a chance to let down their guard and get some sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28910280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: Neil can’t sleep.
Relationships: Kevin Day & Neil Josten, Neil Josten & The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	way down we go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intearsaboutrobots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intearsaboutrobots/gifts).



Neil can’t sleep.

The season is over. They won. He bought their freedom, their safety, and the cost was, in the end, just money: easy to pay. Things with Andrew are figured out, more or less, even if he doesn’t quite understand it. His relationship with the team is still good, even though they and the rest of the world know who he really is.

Everything is fine, but Neil can’t sleep, and it makes everything worse.

Four in the morning, and Neil is on the benches at the court, staring into the playing field. The lights are on in there, blindingly bright, game-bright, and Neil’s eyes hurt, dry and sticking when he blinks. It’s dark everywhere else. It’s dark where he is. He can’t quite see his hands from here.

He’s in his pajamas, and he ran to the court half an hour ago, through the muggy South Carolina night. It’s stretching into summer, which means blistering, wet heat. The back of his shirt is damp with sweat, sticking to his overheated skin. At least he’s in a t-shirt, not long sleeves; there’s not much point in hiding the scars anymore, so he’s not bothering.

There’s no point in him being here. The season is over, which doesn’t mean they get to go soft, but it does mean practices are just two hours four days a week instead of daily and every night. His nighttime sessions with Kevin are on hold for a bit. But he can’t sleep, and at least when he’s here he feels safe. Feels the crowd roaring, his blood pumping, imagining the flick of his wrist to score and the look on Andrew’s face when they win.

The blood-pump slows the longer he sits here. He can’t ride the high forever, especially when his body is this exhausted; it creaks when he moves, his head feeling like it’s full of cotton. He scratches the inside of his wrist, brief, just because the almost-healed wounds are bugging him, and a moment of bright clarity sweeps over him.

He blinks, and scratches again. He feels a little more awake, just for a minute.

His blunt nails dig in, and pull.

He has leather wristbands to hide the handcuff scars, and he usually doesn’t use them, but back in the room he digs them out before getting back into bed. It’s inching past five and in two hours Andrew will be getting up for their morning run. Neil pulls on the wristbands, and winces when they slide through sticky, drying blood. It’s not much, not much at all — he didn’t scratch that deep, and stopped when he felt the first wetness under his nails — but it’s something, and it’s obvious.

He doesn’t need Andrew to ask if he’s okay. There’s about a million things he’d rather worry about.

Neil gets back in bed, and listens to the slow and steady rhythm of Andrew’s breathing, and stares at the ceiling.

He doesn’t sleep.

His wrist itches.   
  


Andrew doesn’t comment on the wristbands before their run. He doesn’t even look at them for longer than a brief second, when he looks Neil up and down before they leave. He does that a lot. Making sure Neil is here and in one piece. It hasn’t always been a given.

Right now, they should be fine. They should be safe. Nothing is wrong.

But Neil still can’t sleep, and there’s an itch at the back of his skull like he should be running away from all this.

The runs help. It’s something in the pounding of his feet against the concrete, the sunrise creeping up and lighting his path, the sweat dripping into his eyes. Air ripping through his lungs, wet and too hot even this early, reminding him that he’s here, he’s real, he’s a real person who is not going to vanish into the night.

One foot in front of the other, running and running and running, and when he stops he’ll still be Neil Josten.

Normally the end of the run is when he heads for the shower or maybe Andrew pushes him against the wall and kisses him, almost sweet, but this time when he stops he sways on his feet. The sun has come up and it’s beating down on his head, and even the sweat dripping off him can’t stop the heat.

“Neil,” Andrew says, a question and an order in one, and Neil blinks at him. Andrew is holding the open door, waiting for him, which he doesn’t normally do.

“Yeah.” Neil follows. When he puts a hand on the back of his overheated neck, the leather strap, wet with perspiration and blood, sticks to it.

He drops his hand and resists tugging on the bracelet. He doesn’t want to draw attention to it.

Andrew’s eyes dip down and back away. Neither of them speak.

“Did you sleep?” Andrew asks after a long moment.

“Yes,” Neil says, defensive. He did sleep. Maybe an hour.

“Hm.” Andrew clearly decides not to press the issue. He jerks his head towards the door, and Neil goes. Andrew follows.

There’s breakfast when they get back. Or, there’s Andrew passing him a yogurt and a snack bar and heading to take first shower. Neil’s stomach writhes when he looks at the food, and he throws it all out, unopened.

Water will be fine. Hydration is more important, anyway.

It’s a quiet day. Not a practice day, so Neil spends most of it with Andrew, smoking on the rooftop or sitting on the couch together, just barely touching in a way no one else would be allowed to. There’s lunch, which Neil manages a bite of, and there’s a moment when Andrew is gone and Neil can’t stop itching, inside his skull, everything hurts and he starts scratching again and doesn’t stop when he feels blood under his nails.

Rinse. Cover up. When Andrew gets back, Neil takes the keys, and they drive.

Dinner with the Foxes. Abby is feeding them, and it’s a delicious meal and Neil can’t touch it, just stares down at the roast beef and potatoes and salad on his plate and tries not to throw up. There’s only so much he can hide, so he has to eat some of it, but he took small enough portions and moved them around enough that it looks like he had his fill. 

This time, he feels observed. Andrew is on the other side of the table and Neil can feel eyes boring into his skull and he doesn’t look because he doesn’t think he can handle what he might see.

He throws up in the bathroom while the party moves to the living room, the whir of the fan covering up the sounds. It’s not even on purpose, which is probably the saddest part. He just couldn’t keep it down. 

Neil doesn’t sleep that night. Again. He tosses and turns — well, metaphorically speaking, he doesn’t move much in bed — until he flips open his charging phone to see 3:57 blinking at him in neon green.

Might as well go for a run.

He’s sure Andrew’s asleep — he knows the breathing patterns — and he stays quiet as he climbs down off his bunk, grabs his shoes, and slips out the door.

It’s even hotter tonight, and he stumbles a little as he starts to run into the muggy air. Every breath hurts, a wheeze low in his chest. His stomach grumbles, once, and then goes silent. That’s the thing about not eating for a while. Your body stops complaining. Neil hasn’t gotten to this point of hunger in… a while.

When he gets to the stadium, sweat is pouring down his back and sticking his hair to his skull. He can feel his heartbeat as he slows down, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. There’s a metallic taste in his mouth that might be blood or might be sweat or might be his own imagination.

He’s distracted enough that he gets to the point of reaching for his keys before he realizes the door is already open, propped ajar and light spilling out. Neil blinks, and opens the door.

Kevin is on the other side, looking down at him with a level of disappointment that Neil hasn’t seen since he truly devoted himself to the sport.

“What are you doing?” Kevin asks, and somehow Neil knows that he’s not asking about tonight.

Neil pretends he is, anyway. “I went for a run.”

Kevin exhales hard. “You’re not sleeping. You’re not eating. Andrew is worried, and you know what it takes to get him to worry.”

A lot, that’s what. Neil’s stomach does something uncomfortable. He hadn’t realized Andrew had noticed, which was probably ridiculous, because Andrew doesn’t miss things like this. “I didn’t mean to,” he says, which feels like a copout.

“Come back with me,” Kevin says, and shuts off the light.

In the passenger seat of Kevin’s car, the AC cooling him down and the radio turned to something low and crooning, Neil drifts off, for the five minute drive back.

At the dorm, Andrew is waiting, a cigarette burning down untouched between his fingers. Neil’s sure he’s about to get the lecture of a lifetime, and is gearing up for it, but when he gets out of the car Andrew doesn’t say anything cutting, just flicks some ash onto the sidewalk and looks at Neil for a long moment.

“I thought we were done with this,” Andrew finally says. Kevin is leaning against the door of the dorm, looking far more awake than he should for four in the morning. “You chose life. You said you don’t want to kill yourself. So I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t want to kill myself,” Neil says, and it only feels like a lie when it crosses his lips. And he doesn’t lie to Andrew. Neil closes his eyes, and thinks, and corrects. “I don’t want to do anything. I just…”

Andrew and Kevin wait, watching, while he collects his thoughts. Their gaze doesn’t feel heavy or cruel, which he’s glad for, because this could so easily feel like an ambush. It doesn’t.

“I don’t know how,” Neil says. “I thought I was going to die. I lived like I was going to die. And I can’t stop wondering what’s going to catch me out. I can’t let my guard down. It’s worse, because I don’t even know what I’m running from.”

Neil doesn’t usually talk like this, but he hasn’t really slept in a week. He doesn’t think they can blame him.

“Right,” Andrew says, not unsympathetically, but with a certain practicality that Neil appreciates. He didn’t expect coddling from Andrew, and it’s comforting, in its own way, to be right about that. “You need to sleep, and then we can figure this out. You’re not going to practice in the morning. Come on.”

Neil follows.

In their dorm, the beds have been rearranged and pressed up next to each other. Andrew hands Neil some clean clothes and tells him to shower, and when Neil gets back, Andrew is waiting for him on one side of the bed.

“You’re not getting up until you sleep,” Andrew says. “And neither am I.”

Neil has to kiss him. They still don’t — they’re not romantic, they’re not adorable, but he has to kiss Andrew then, and he does. When he pulls back, Andrew isn’t smiling, because he never does, but he looks content.

They don’t touch, when they’re in bed together, but Andrew looks across the bed at him, and Neil reaches out under the covers, hopeful. Andrew takes his hand, and holds on, and turns out the light.

Eventually, Neil sleeps. He doesn’t dream at all.


End file.
